Panelists discuss economic inequalities

College Democrats, the Indiana Public Interest Research Group and Union Board co-sponsored a panel called “Hot Chocolate and Hot Topics: Income Inequality” on Wednesday with about 20 people in attendance.

INPIRG presented a slideshow displaying the degree to which income inequality exists and said the gap between rich and poor is greater in times of economic crises. Three speakers — Professor of Political Science Gerald Wright, Professor of Sociology Pamela Walters and social worker Bruce McCallister — were prompted with questions about why income inequality is wrong and what should be done to stop it.

One of the questions was whether the rich claim their wealth through hard work.
Wright said they do, but he added that there is a trend of the rich having more of the proportion of wealth.

The panel members also discussed elections for government offices. They agreed that the wealthy are the only ones who have a chance to win these elections, saying this is due to the necessity for a high level of funding in order to promote a candidate.

“(Wealthy candidates’) perspectives are going to be different than us, the average citizens,” McCallister said.

Wright also spoke about the issue.

“Even if your heart is in the right place as a liberal Democrat, you’re still going to have to go where the money is,” Wright said. “And you’re not going to be able to go to the poor neighborhoods to finance a campaign. They just don’t have it. (Democrats) are going to have to pan out and go where the money is.”

Wright also said studies have linked citizens’ degrees of overall happiness with degrees of income equality in a country. He said people in countries with greater equality are happier.

“Even the very rich are worse off than they would be if they weren’t so rich and income was more equally distributed,” Wright said.

While discussing the effect of income inequality on families, Walters said, “Regular families are far more stressed today than they used to be.”

She said poor education is a large factor in this stress level because parents have pressure to make their children succeed, but the quality of education hinders their abilities to do so.

“Our battle is to convince people in the white working class that their enemy is not the people who are around them,” McCallister said. “And really I don’t like terms of enemies because that’s too heated, but the obstacles are not the people around them but the people in the much higher incomes that are setting all the rules and keeping wages low.”

Another topic discussed within the presentation was unemployment.

“There’s plenty of work for people to do,” McCallister said. “We just have to put them to work, and if the private sector can do it, that’s absolutely the best thing, but when they’re not hiring people, then the government has to step in and do it.”